In a post on the State Department’s “DipNote” blog, Krysten Carrera, a Presidential Management Fellow in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, discusses why non-communicable diseases “represent an urgent and growing threat to global public health” (6/18).

“Nearly a half-century after U.S. cigarette packs were emblazoned with their first, modest warning, ‘Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health,’ the Food and Drug Administration – at Congress’ behest – is â€¦ requiring tobacco companies to print painful images, such as that of a man smoking through a hole in his throat or of a lip eroded by cancer and a mouthful of rotting teeth, right on their cigarette packs,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports (Gelles, 6/22).

“Alzheimer’s experts urged U.S. lawmakers on Thursday to increase funding for research of the debilitating disease and to push international policymakers to pay more attention to its global impact,” Reuters reports (Steenhuysen, 6/23).

The number of adults with type 2 diabetes has doubled worldwide over the last three decades, rising from 153 million in 1980 to 347 million, “a sign that the epidemic will impose an ever-greater cost burden on health systems,” according to a study published on Saturday in the Lancet, the Wall Street Journal reports (Naik, 6/27).

“A committee of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection has concluded after a comprehensive review that there is little cause for concern about the suggested link between mobile phone use and brain tumors,” BMJ reports (Watts, 7/4).

Laws that require graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging impact more than one billion people in 19 countries, but more needs to be done to cut smoking rates worldwide, the WHO said Thursday in its third report on the global tobacco epidemic, Reuters reports (Kelland, 7/7).

In a report (.pdf) released on Tuesday, the World Bank urged China to step up its efforts to fight non-communicable diseases (NCDs), “the main cause of death in the country, warning of rising health expenditure and an economic slowdown if rapid action is not taken,” Reuters reports.

“The rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)” is “a growing but under-addressed challenge in both the developed and developing world,” Jean-Luc Butel, executive vice president and group president for Medtronic’s international operations, writes in a Muskegon Chronicle opinion piece. “[S]hifting demographics, lifestyles and environmental factors in places like China and India have led to a dramatic increase in NCDs,” he writes, adding that “[e]stimates suggest NCDs will account for three out of every four deaths globally by 2030.”